A Mapuche Radio Program in Santiago

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Summary of the Project

Wixage Anai (working title) is a documentary project, of which the above video is only a glimpse, which examines the future of indigenous media in Latin America, specifically in the urban metropolis of Santiago, Chile. Centered around the everyday existence of a Mapuche radio production, this audiovisual poject attempts to shed light on some of the experiences and challenges Mapuches face in their important struggle to reaffirm both their culture and their political rights in a culturally and politically difficult environment. This struggle takes place in the capital city of a country famous for its adoption of a neoliberal economic model where the mass media, which is concentrated in the hands of a few economic holdings, plays an important role in reproducing an apolitical society fixated on economic growth. The project sets out to answer how alternative media, representing different visions and cosmovisions, can help broaden the horizons of such a rigid paradigm of economic development and help create a true democracy not only in Chile, but throughout the world.

Project Goals

1. Promote awareness about Mapuche experiences in the city.
2. Address and dispel popular misconceptions about Mapuches.
3. Generate a critical perspective on the mass media.
4. Show some of the production's technical and cultural difficulties.
5. Show how the two cosmovisions (Mapuche and Occidental) clash in a city landscape.
6. Raise funds for the continuation of the program Wixae Anai.
7. Generate enthusiasm for alternative media in young people.
8. Show positive images of Mapuches in Chilean media.

Introduction

The Mapuche people of Chile are seen by the majority of Chileans in Santiago as relics of the past, as statues erected out of clay and summoned for this month’s museum exhibit. Their images are unmoving, frozen in time for citizens of the modern state to consume as art or entertainment. They represent a discarded way of life labeled “traditional”, and although many of their cultural artifacts, especially their silver jewelry work, are cherished for their undisputed value, the Mapuche people, as a rule, are discriminated against in all sectors of contemporary society, and even by themselves. But even as we read about this harsh reality, the Mapuche are regaining their voice and are teaching each other many of the cultural elements that have been lost to the often violent process of colonization, modernization and economization. Especially in Santiago, this phenomenon represents a struggle of enormous magnitude, a cultural movement that, among other things, pretends to teach young generations how to stand up in the world, how to resist the self-degradation encouraged by the market system, and how to simply be proud of themselves along with their communities. It is unfortunate that the public opinion in Chile simply discards this cultural struggle and is stubborn in its adopted market rationality, which prevents interpreting the Mapuche as anything other than poor Chileans who are underdeveloped and in need of technical assistance, or sometimes as violent terrorists who represent an unclear threat to the elusive development of the country.

One explanation for this unwillingness to respect or lend credibility to this movement is that it has the potential to call into question something that, for better or worse, has been tacitly adopted by the Chilean economic and political establishment. The post-pinochet “flowering” of the modern market system in Chile has facilitated the importation of a “disposable” culture of production and consumption into the country. Along with its key cultural elements (individuation, indifference, excess consumption of resources by a minority, the tacit acceptance of a watered-down electoral democracy, privatization, the adoption of the discourse of economic “growth” as substitute for social justice, a stubborn insistence on the word “development” even though the idea behind it is dead, labor mistreatment as competition, greed, the adoption of American culture, etc), is almost by definition the antithesis of mapuche culture. It is true that in Santiago, people who define themselves as mapuche, share and practice many, if not most, of the same values and habits that every other Chilean does (almost out of shear necessity); but this cultural movement is beginning to tilt the boat in another direction. While the neoliberal economic model sponsored by the Chilean government is being elevated to the status of a religion and questioned only by a few heretics, the Chilean state is losing a considerable portion of the population to an idea, to a way of seeing the world, that is incompatible with the homogeneity that it requires for the continued implementation of the economic model. Exploring the different ways in which the mapuche culture, and its “re-awakening”, represents a big question mark for the dominant market culture is essential. How does the mapuche culture problematize the modern industrial way of life here in Chile?

Representation

In the late 1990’s and early 2000, images of masked Mapuches with slings dominated the mainstream press and rarely were they accompanied by representations of the extensive repression exercised by the Chilean carabineros and local paramilitaries (associated with land-owners) in response to what many important scholars and human rights authorities consider to be legitimate land claims made by various Mapuche organizations. As is usual in the dominant commercial media, real context is discarded in favor of simplistic and sensational appeals for ratings (“viewership”), usually constructed on the basis of fear. The Mapuche activists, the organizations they represented, and the communities represented by their organizations were lumped together into a nutshell labeled something like “disgruntled”, “pissed-off”, or “highly upset”. About what? Who knew? The context, the complicated history of the land issue, including the political and legal maneuverings (and decrees) associated with the transfer of land from families to private conglomerates, are not as easy to edit down into a headliner or a sound byte. Neither are the long history of intervention by distinct authorities into ancestral lands and the violent expropriation of the same. In those tense moments, public opinion about the Mapuche, needless to say, went from indifferent to contemptuous. This “intifada”, as one major newspaper headline read, brings up the unavoidable link that exists within this movement between the cultural and the political. That is to say, territory is an integral part of the traditional Mapuche culture, historically defined, administered and even granted legitimacy by the Spanish crown, the ancestral territory, and now its recuperation, form an important part of the Mapuche movement. Obviously, this troubles the Chilean government, who is forced to juggle interests of varying dimensions, including hydroelectric projects, massive tree farming, and agricultural development, all key ingredients in the neoliberal export-model.

The “historical warrior” Mapuche forms part of the Chilean foundation of pride and strength taught in schools across the nation. The Mapuche, lead by mythical figures representing stamina and cunning wit, managed to halt the southern advance of the Spanish conquistadores. Mapuches of today, however, are nevertheless expected to cede the way for the great industrial machine of progress and civilization. Any continued resistance to “invaders” is not only inappropriate, but it is also illogical from the point of view of the dominant culture, whose economic cosmovision of “growth” and “development” is considered to be more universal and natural than gravity itself.

The Media

What role does the media play? At the risk of sounding dramatic, the media is one of the key players in all of this because it is the media who determines what is real and what isn't. It is clear that the Mapuches exist little, and perhaps this media indifference echoes the government’s inability to grant the Mapuche constitutional recognition, or perhaps its inability to sign the International Labor Organization’s convention 169 on indigenous rights. When the Mapuches do appear from the dark recesses of oblivion, it is only to fill the role of the disgruntled citizen who represents a clear and present danger to the march of development towards progress. The conflict between Mapuche activists, the Chilean state, and transnational business firms is characterized not as a government problem, or an economic problem, but rather as “the mapuche problem”. Partly because the loss of land and territory is buried in the past and rendered invisible by the nature of incremental change, the media is simply unable to present the issue as anything other than a temporary imbalance that must be dealt with criminally, inviting viewers to, in the meantime, think little and do nothing until the storm passes. How is this level of indifference cultivated and maintained?

Societies have become so big and complex, and people/families have become so individuated and isolated (ironically), that their perception of the world beyond their doorstep, or beyond their physical and immediate reach is determined solely on the benevolent service of the mass media. This is alarmingly so in Chile where the majority of people perceive their country and the world through the eyes and ears of a handful of media conglomerates which represent the beliefs of the economic establishment and their obsessive interest in economic stability, depoliticization, and potential for economic “growth” pegged to the globalization model. The centralization of the media system helps to manufacture a narrow representation of reality, a reality which leaves little room for alternative or conflicting visions. Is it too outrageous to suggest that the reality constructed by a handful of media conglomerates, who depend on the success of their sponsors for their own survival, might be a little biased towards the interests of the economic establishment? The enormous development investments that are present in the south, all of which represent a unified gamble on the stability of those key regions where the largest percentage of Mapuches live, constitute a huge lobby; it is disingenuous to deny that there is a fundamental correlation between the media construction, or outright dismissal of the Mapuche land issue and the economic interests that might be affected by indigenous claims to ancestral territory. Hence what we see is a flagrant misrepresentation, or non-representation of, not only the Mapuche movement, but of any social movement representing legitimate claims and worries associated with the neoliberal economic model. The environment, inequality, violence, indifference, employment security, poverty, intolerance, and even the status of democracy are just a few issues that trouble, on a day to day level, a substantial portion of the population in Chile.

Wixage Anai

The Wixage Anai documentary project, still in its early stages, is an attempt to shake the foundations of such a rigid and limited structure of representations constructed by the dominant system of media and representation. Mapuches are not warriors of the past, frozen in time, holding on to the last vestiges of “the old ways” with the help of anthropologists and museum archivists. They are very much part of a living, dynamic transformation that is occurring in the capital city of Santiago. They are creating their own representations of themselves and of the dominant Winka (occidental) cultural discourse. Embedded in an economic model that seeks to integrate Chilean resources (both human and natural) into the global economy under the banner of linear, short-term growth, perhaps this Mapuche “awakening” can also be an awakening for all Chileans, before it’s too late, before everything is lost to the all-consuming marketplace.

Wixage Anai focuses on a Mapuche radio program of the same name that is breaking the barriers of radial communication. As a primer for Mapuche culture in Santiago, the program is a precise example of a counter-discourse aimed at rescuing listeners from the representations monopolized by large media conglomerates that communicate solely commercial values and reinforce the corporate vision for Chile. The project centers on both the physical and abstract space of the radio program, which broadcasts primarily from a community-sponsored AM radio station (radiotierra.cl) in Bella Vista, Santiago. The radio program is produced by a Mapuche organization called Jvken Mapu, which is a communications center located in a neighborhood called Cerro Navia. The documentary project sets out to answer three fundamental questions. The first one has to do with the potential for alternative, listener-sponsored, media to play an important role in indigenous movements (in both cultural and political aspects) that are taking place in the urban centers of Latin America. In other words, what role might they play in the development of indigenous movements? The second question can be posited as follows: to what extent can alternative “discourses” representing indigenous value-systems call into question the tacit assumptions inherent in the dominant market culture? Lastly, and within the framework of alternative media, to what extent does the mass media manufacture consent in Chile and could alternative media outlets like Wixage Anai challenge this level of consent?